Wouldn’t it be amazing to wake up to the first alarm, realizing you had a great sleep last night… You feel the satisfaction of having a little more than 7 hours of uninterrupted sleep. Unlike other days, when you’ll never leave your bed after opening your eyes in the morning, today, you are ready to leave your bed and prepare yourself for a great day ahead.
Without fixing your sleep habits, it’s quite impossible to wake up in the morning without hitting the snooze button multiple times.
This post will walk you through steps that you need to follow if you want to get rid of your habit of snoozing your alarms and how to not snooze your alarm in the morning.
Whether you want to wake up at 6 am or 8 am, improving your sleeping habits will make it easier for you to wake up to your first alarm.
Improving sleeping habits to wake up to your first alarm.
Calculating how many hours you are sleeping at night can be tricky if you count the time when you go to bed and wake up in the morning.
When you go to bed early but it takes you longer to fall asleep then you might end up getting less sleep than you have planned.
There are a few things you can do to fall asleep within 10-15 minutes and have a sound sleep at night.
It’s important that you must have an uninterrupted sleep at night. Waking up multiple times at night can require you to sleep long hours. And snoozing your alarm and getting 20-30 minutes of extra sleep isn’t the best practice.
Here are some of the steps that you can take so that it gets easier for you to fall asleep faster.
1. Exercise during the day.
If you workout during the day naturally at night you will feel sleepy. Several studies have proven that exercising during the day helps with having better sleep at night.
To not snooze your alarm in the morning, you must be having an adequate amount of sleep at night.
If it takes longer for you to fall asleep then if you plan for having 7-8 hours of sleep at night, in reality, you will end up having a little more than 6 hours of sleep.
Thus you must participate in such activities that can help you to fall asleep faster.
Exercising during the day is one of the best ways you can reduce the amount of time it takes to fall asleep at night.
2. Avoid sleeping during the day.
When you want to fall asleep faster, you should avoid sleeping during the day.
In a natural sleep cycle, your body will crave sleep after every 15-16 hours. So if you sleep during the day, then it can break your natural sleep cycle.
Thus sleeping during the day can increase the amount of time you have to wait before you fall asleep at night.
3. Eat your dinner early.
If you find it hard to fall asleep at night then eating your dinner early can help you to fall asleep faster.
For better results, you should eat your dinner at least 2 hours earlier than the time you want to fall asleep.
Related: How to be a morning workout person.
4. Limit your screen time at night.
During night hours if you expose your eyes to blue lights from your phones, laptops and tv then it can cause you to take a long time before you can fall asleep.
If you want to fall asleep sooner, then you should limit the amount of time you use your phone and other digital devices at night.
Exposing your eyes to fewer blue lights before you sleep can help you to fall asleep faster at night.
5. Find a relaxing activity before you go to sleep.
If when you go to sleep at night you began to think about many things and it’s keeping you awake late at night then you can avoid this if you do some relaxing activities right before you sleep.
You can choose a relaxing activity according to your preferences. But when it comes to giving you the best results you should try meditation.
Try 10-15 minutes of meditation right before you sleep. It will help you relax your body and mind. And can help you to fall asleep faster.
6. Sleep at a fixed time.
You can’t fix your sleeping habits within days. Sometimes it can take some weeks to see results and fix your sleeping habits.
When you try to sleep at a fixed time your body begins to get used to it. Thus it will help you with sleeping faster and you will also wake up at a fixed time.
Related: 9 Steps that helped me to become more productive at work.
7 Tips on how to not snooze your alarm
Now that you have read about how to improve your sleep and how you can fall asleep faster, in this section you will read how to not snooze your alarm in the morning.
1. Let the sunshine come through the window.
When you sleep with the curtains on in the morning your room won’t be filled with sunlight. This can make you think it’s not that late and you might again fall back to sleep.
Adjusting your curtains in such a way that there is a place where sunlight can come in the morning will help you to better know what time it is and you are more likely to leave the bed early in the morning.
Also, if you make room for sunlight to come in the morning it can help you to get up without even needing an alarm.
But you will not wake up when the sunlight comes immediately. It can take some days before you form this as a habit.
2. Get an alarm clock.
Most of the time we use our phones to set up the alarm in the morning. But when you keep your phone close to you, you will naturally hit the snooze button.
When you use your phone as an alarm clock there is no button. So you don’t need to think much and you follow your natural instinct to turn the alarm off.
If you find it hard to wake up to a phone alarm it may be the right time to get an actual alarm clock.
3. Keep your alarm clock across the room.
Keeping your alarm clock close to your bed won’t help you that much if you want to wake up to your first alarm.
By keeping your alarm clock across the room you will force yourself to walk up to it and it will help you remove your sleepiness. And if you stay determined and leave the room then it will help you to wake up early without needing to set multiple alarms.
4. Turn on the lights after the alarm goes off.
After you have woken up in the morning by the sound of your alarm, if you don’t want to fall back to sleep – turn your room lights on.
If you keep your room dark then it will trigger your brain to fall back to sleep. But if you turn on the lights it’s most likely that you will stay awake.
Also, when you turn the lights on – it gets harder to fall back to sleep.
After waking up make a habit of immediately turning on the lights if you don’t want to again fall asleep after waking up in the morning.
5. Have something to do after you wake up.
Without having a purpose or having nothing to do in the morning will make you want to sleep a bit more. But when you have something to do you find a purpose to wake up at a time you are comfortable with.
So, if you can’t wake up in the morning because you have nothing to do after you wake up, you need to change your habits.
You need to find an activity to do right after you wake up. It can be exercising first thing after you wake up. Prepare your morning coffee and read a book, you can try solving a puzzle or take a quick walk.
Forming a habit of engaging yourself with some activities right after you wake up will give you a purpose to wake up at a fixed time. And if you practice this daily then over time it will become natural for you to wake up at that specific time.
6. Have someone wake you up.
If you have a deep sleep and alarms don’t wake you up then you need to ask someone to wake you up.
For persons with deep sleep, there is a trick to wake them up in the morning. To wake them up in the morning the other person simply needs to place their fingers on his head and gently start massaging and increase the pace gradually. This will wake them up almost instantly.
But after waking up they might again want to fall back to sleep. You will read what to do next after you wake up in the morning so that you won’t fall back to sleep after waking up in below section.
7. Leave your room after you wake up.
If you have a habit of waking up to the alarm and seeing the bed makes you feel sleepy then if you want to avoid sleeping in the morning you need to leave your room.
After waking up if you are still feeling sleepy, you need to leave your room. You can go to the kitchen and drink a glass of water then have some caffeine to remove your sleepiness.
The main thing is after waking up you need to leave your room for 5-10 minutes. During that time, you need to walk around the dining area or prepare something to eat to completely remove any sleepiness that you might have.
Related: 9 Benefits of morning exercise before breakfast.
How to stay awake after the alarm goes off
Here are some of the tips that work to make you stay awake after the alarm goes off. Doing these activities in the morning will help you to remove your sleepiness and help you to stay awake after your alarm goes off.
Drink a glass of water.
After the alarm goes off – roll out of bed and if you want then you can sit on the bed for a few minutes as you might feel sleepy at this point.
After resting on your bed for some minutes, you need to leave the bed and sit elsewhere if you want to. Then you need to drink a glass of water. This will help you to remove any sleepiness that you may have.
After drinking the water, you can simply use the washroom to freshen up and then drink some caffeine to not feel sleepy again.
Find an activity to do right after you wake up.
After waking up in the morning and drinking your water and caffeine you need to get busy with doing some activities.
You need to pre-plan what activity you will do in the morning. To remove sleepiness in the morning doing some activities is the best way you can make yourself stay awake after the alarm goes off.
Get busy preparing your breakfast.
After waking up to your alarm if you can’t find anything to do then you can get busy preparing your breakfast. This will help you to remove sleepiness and also help you to complete your breakfast early.
Doing this might help you if you need to go to your office afterwards. Often time – people who wake up late simply can’t get enough time to eat their breakfast.
To live a healthy lifestyle, you should always eat an actual breakfast.
By the time you prepare and eat your breakfast, you will see your sleepiness is completely gone.
Conclusion
To not snooze your alarm in the morning you need to first think about ways that can help you to fall asleep faster and have an adequate amount of sleep. If you sleep for fewer hours at night – naturally you will struggle to wake up in the morning no matter how many alarms you set in the morning.
For most people having 7 hours of sleep is more than enough.
If after having 7+ hours of sleep you are struggling to wake up in the morning then you need to adjust your curtains so that when it’s bright outside – sunlight can come into your room. Also, place your alarm clock across the room and turn on your room lights as soon as you wake up.
After waking up leave your room for 5-10 minutes and engage yourself with some activities like preparing your breakfast, reading a book or going on a walk to completely remove your sleepiness.